You make some good points about whining and irrelevant posts, Frank. But I'd like to explain the relevance of my post, quoted below.

> For all teachers who are not of the white race: keep in mind that
> Japanese women are usually quite racist and will only entertain love
> interest from Caucasians.

>>I heard the same thing said about Chinese women. I'm a black guy, and after spending three and a half years in China, I found it to be completely untrue. I suspect your claim is probably untrue too.

>>Do you base your sweeping statement on personal experience?

The first part was the original post, and the double marked part was my reply.

The intention of my post was not to give a hitchhikers guide, for non-whites to "scoring" in Asia. My intention was to correct what I feel was an erroneous claim that I thought first of all gave an inaccurate, negative impression of nearly all Japanese women, and also cast Japanese society as a whole in a negative light( read for yourself what the original poster claimed above!).

I also thought such a sweeping statement might deny Japan the opportunity of engaging the services of many good teachers of non-caucasian background from contributing to the English education of both Japanese adults and children. By the same token many non-caucasians would miss out on a worthwhile teaching experience in Asia, because of being put of by such a negative and sweeping statement.

When mentioning my experience as a black guy, I wasn't boosting about any alleged success in "scoring" with Asian girls, but just trying to highlight a point, based on experience, that a non-caucasion DOES have a good opportunity to acquire a girlfriend in Asia while living and working here for whatever period of time they choose to, or are able to do so. This desire is both natural and important to many men, especially if they plan on spending a significant amount of time in Asia. So although on the surface my post seemed to not have much to do with EFL, I think it does have relevance.

I think there is a difference between whining, and posts that give teachers opportunities to make informed decisions (like Hemingway mentioned in a good post he made). If a teacher at a school had only told me of the GOOD points about a school (even if they were correct), but he "forgot" to mention the "cockroach infested apartments" and "rat-filled yards", I would not be too pleased. Who would be? Hiding information, such as specifically clear and blatant cases of schools cheating FTs, from those thinking of teaching in Asia, certainly doesn't do anybody any favors. That isn't whining!